At the time of Creation, Sky Father united with Earth Mother and from their union was born Stone Child. At birth, Stone Child knew instinctively that it would be her task to transform herself. To this end she stepped onto the Spirit Path. Stone Child's Mother is a shared quest for wholeness. Written for those who yearn to acquire the necessary life-giving mother energy to heal. - "Virginia Nemetz has the unusual gift to write about the mother archetype in its personal and symbolic aspect . . . this beautiful book touched me deeply. It is genuine and shares Virginia's journey in a generous way". -Kathrin Asper, PhD, author of The Inner Child in Dreams and The Abandoned Child Within

STONE CHILD'S MOTHER

A Jungian Narrative Reflection on the Mother ArchetypeBy VIRGINIA NEMETZ

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Virginia Nemetz
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-7294-1

Contents

Introduction............................................................................xiAcknowledgements........................................................................xvChapter 1 Mother Archetype: Birth Trauma &Rebirth.......................................1Chapter 2 The Grandmothers: Grannys, Shamans &The Gift of the Prism.....................17Chapter 3 Mother Surrogates& Symbols....................................................39Chapter 4 Other Mothers: Churches, Crucibles & Rituals..................................58Chapter 5 Mother Nature: Energy, Evil & Experience......................................80Chapter 6 Negative Mothers: The Dark Side of Mother.....................................97Chapter 7 Mother of Dreams..............................................................117Chapter 8 Endless Energy................................................................142Chapter 9 Mother of the Dawn: Madonna &Transformation...................................158Chapter 10 Divine Mother: Redemption and Renewal Swans I Have Known.....................176Endnotes................................................................................193References..............................................................................199

Chapter One

Mother Archetype: Birth Trauma & Rebirth

In the beginning are the womb and our first encounter with mother. She is the whole world. We become imprinted in her soul, and she is imprinted in our body. The life she channels is a gift of creation and becomes our connection with that divine spark in our center. The encounter gives us our breath and soul, and then catapults us into the unknown. This heritage of mother is our experience of the archetype of mother and within her embrace is all of creation. It has been said that "To walk through life armored against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together—the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender."

* * *

In a small cottage by the river behind Abeling's Cider Mill, what held my attention as I lay on my back, gazing up at the window, were the dust motes suspended above me while light particles played on the air just out of reach. These fragments of light delighted me, reached inside me, held and nourished me. I opened my hand to grasp what I saw, and for a moment warmth soaked my palm, then disappeared. Envisioned before I could walk, light appears to have been my birth gift, and I know it is a gift each of us was given as our birthright.

The fact that my own mother was not one of my first memories only meant that I needed to struggle to remember and understand what I already knew. The fact that my first memory was that of light reaches out to hold me and sustain my life's efforts. Like Keats, whose "Ode to Psyche" was seen in descending Michaelangelic shafts of light, I, too, am inspired. "I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired," wrote Keats. My first memory, never forgotten, recalled in unforeseen moments, surely points to the psyche's powerful reach and luminous hold. If the psyche is that wonder that accompanies the soul, the wonder that descends on a light beam or soaks into a child's palm, then it may be assumed that the psyche has been with us from the beginning. She is the wind and the heart of a bear. She is a friend without whom life is incomplete. Often, in order to find her, we begin our search for the soul.

* * *

There are quiet moments when, like a bit of dust descending in the room, I drift in and out of days with no thought to time being allotted in smallmote-likeportionsorinfluffsofdustorinthegrainsofsandyeternity. How do I remind myself of time passing me by, when there is a sink to clean, garbage to take out, or dishes to remove from the dishwasher? My mind is a child of illusion whose keystone of comfort is memory. Whether or not the past is redeemable through memory remains unknown. That is, can I resurrect that feeling of warmth and security that was mother's shelter, recall the touch and warmth of light on baby skin, feel the gentle water of the womb? I am told that my time in utero did not go so well for me. Mother fell down a flight of stairs and I was spun around, legs twisted and hips squeezed. Birth was not an easy time for either of us. Not that it mattered that my birth was traumatic or that my arrival was a hardship to be endured. Certainly, I was healthy and strong and happy to be here.

* * *

In the beginning there is birth. Otto Rank, an early pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis, spoke of birth as a trauma. It is essentially the trauma of separation from mother. Subsequently, death becomes a reuniting with mother and her dark warm womb. In the beginning mothers dominated cultural traditions, and a mother's rights were considered an essential aspect of consciousness. J. J. Bachofen was a Swiss thinker who emphasized the importance of mother understanding. He was concerned with matriarchy before it was taken over by the masculine influence that put a curse on women's organs and tried to repress or control those organs. Obviously, the birth process refers to the primary and most enviable act: creation. In an effort to camouflage this envy, men have subjected women to mutilations, have covered them from head to toe, have kept them behind walls and have protected them from the deleterious effects of education. According to Freud, a young boy's unconscious desire for the ability to give birth is sublimated quickly in our cultural era to the desire to control those who actually give birth. Women are beaten, humiliated and kept at home, all in a more or less unconscious desire to obliterate the power of creation. As birth and death are inextricably connected, so are creation and destruction. One can quickly turn to the other.

* * *

Whether they realize it or not, mothers are powerful. In a compendium of goddesses representing mother, one of the earliest is the Sphinx. In ancient Phoenician, Egyptian and Peruvian myths, she stands guard inscrutably over coffins and graves. Known as the goddess of death, she is also a receptacle of birth; for the human head is what she births. As a powerful woman, she dictates that men be excluded from the act of mourning.

Death is a return to the womb, and the wailing that accompanies the mourning ritual is a call to this return to the earth. "Indeed, the ancients recognized in this taking back of the dead, the highest expression of mother love which keeps faith with her offspring of the moment, when it stands there abandoned by all." Thus, visitors to Egypt still stand in awe before her magisterial presence as she presides over the pyramids, the ancient burial grounds of an ancient culture.

* * *

Though my first memories had nothing to do with mother, this book has everything to do with mother: my own, myself as mother, spiritual mothers, Divine Mother, ordinary mothers and the archetype of mother. My path would soon involve a search for her.

* * *

Plato was the earliest known philosopher to use the word archetype. As an image, the archetype is the imprint of the Divine as it touches the soul. It manifests in the form of dreams, visions and mythical awareness, all of which derive from the domain of the unconscious. In the Phaedo, Plato remarked that "if it is true that we acquired our knowledge before our birth, and lost it at the moment of birth but afterward, by the exercise of our senses upon sensible objects, recovered the knowledge which we had once before, I suppose that what we call learning will be the recovery of our own knowledge ..."

When Plato referred to the archetype, he was referring to the light and the idea of the light's image: the Light of all Light. Today Plato's insights are referred to as religious philosophy, and the light he spoke of might be described through images of Christ instead, or the Light of Heaven. Plato's thoughts have been categorized, classified and divided by reason and logic while the psyche has been relegated to the field of alternative studies.

Gestation, birth, birth trauma and severance from the mother vessel: all these states of development rely on mother. Without her we would not be here. It is a big subject, never more so than now in the twenty-first century, when motherhood has become an arduous task for some, a distant phenomenon for others. After all, so much can go wrong; humans are not perfect; therefore, mothers are apt to be blamed for the messy misunderstandings that accompany the growth process. Blame, it would seem, comes with the territory.

* * *

When my mother was eighty, she came to visit. It was a time spent in slow motion. Time is a gift, I told myself, not a trial but an opportunity to go into slow motion in an imitation of my mother's age and pace, an opportunity to experience her perception of time. No visit ever happens twice. Nothing is more sacred than this moment. I bought lots of yarn and began a knitting project to fill in the long silences, to bring together the strands of my life and to untie the intermittent pain I felt as heaviness descended. My mother had never held me tenderly or said, "I love you". She never got that quality of delight in her voice, when she spoke of me or to me. She was not about to change at eighty.

On the first night of her visit I had a dream. In the dream I take my mother for a visit to Yasodhara Ashram. On our first day we walk together up the steps that lead to the backdoor of the ashram bookstore. It is winter, snowy and cold, but the bookstore is warm inside. The heat comes from a little wood-burning stove in the middle of the store. Swami Brahmananda sits at the book order desk, and I introduce him to my mother.

Most psychologists would interpret this dream as compensatory, meant to fulfill us in areas that are lacking in our real lives. Longing for mother is expressed in the desire to return to a warm and comfortable room that is filled with the dreamer's favorite things, in this case books. The books are mostly spiritual and can be ordered right there. The keeper of the store is a curious and holy monk with the name Brahmananda or bliss of Brahma or, more accurately, the bliss of creation. Obviously, I still wish for a joyous birth and for acceptance by mother, for no one escapes the trauma of birth. There is always a satisfaction in showing something to mother. Every child wants to exclaim, "Look Ma, no hands." It is evidence of mastery of a task and is often the foundation of confidence and competence.

To regard the dream as mere compensation, however, would be too simple. This dream is really about the act of creation. The warmth of the stove is the warmth and comfort of centeredness and love. Love of knowledge is what I wish to share with mother. Swami Brahmananda is my friend in reality, and his name evokes creativity. The fire still burns warmly at the center of my world. It remains for me to sublimate into personal fulfillment this constant yearning for mother's acceptance

This dream of mother and the dream's interpretation brings to mind other aspects of mother: birth and womb. Here in the bookstore, it is cozy and warm and filled with beloved knowledge, collected-wisdom-filled shelves and an access to more knowledge at Brahmananda's desk. The bookstore is a living structure in the sense that it is a place alive with dreams. It is similar to the image of a house, a house being a symbol for the self. In its womb-like container, the house shelters the person, providing comfort and an inner relationship to that which surrounds it. The work of archeologist Ernst Fuhrmann reveals that man often placed a living-human-child sacrifice "into the foundation of a new house". Thus, new life was expected to flourish in the position of a fetus in this womb-like home. The gods were placated, and so the occupants were safe and protected. Such obvious symbolic action comes directly from our fear of being suddenly on our own without a mother's secure warmth.

* * *

Mother's visit unbalanced me. It is an embarrassment to admit a need for acceptance at my age. It seems that this constant craving has been with me since birth. Many of my life lessons have been about acceptance—so many, in fact, that I finally became aware of a pattern. It is as if the universe gives me reminders whenever I fail to accept myself. "Here," it says, "have another try."

Most people spend an entire lifetime trying to undo birth trauma, denying separation from mother and gaining an identity separate from mother. In biblical times there was a flood that nearly eliminated humans from the earth. In this act of nature, earth expelled her children, and they were suddenly on their own. This flood is an example of a universal reaction to birth trauma. Noah's response was to build a boat or a mother vessel in which he placed all the animals in pairs, a formula for survival, a way to go back to the womb and to gestate some more.

We refer to the phrase 'back to nature' as a connection to the forest or to the sea or to Mother Nature. We destroy the earth's resources as we bathe in the sun's warmth, swim in an embryonic sea, climb mountains that resemble her breasts or rest in mountain caves resembling her womb. We manufacture beautiful and warm clothing to re-experience being back inside of mother, away from the cold exposure of birth. Rapists try to return to the womb, and singers cry out their emotions in order to breathe away the tension and anxiety of separation from her. The vast majority still blames mother for its problems, beginning with the pain and fear of the loss of the embryonic caul. This includes the umbilical cord that is discarded in the hospital at birth.

This quest for mother is as ancient as motherhood, and each one of us is subject to these yearnings in one form or another. Sometimes we refer to such yearning as craving, a desire that may be fulfilled only rarely. We forget that our mothers had their own mothers and they, in turn, had theirs. Meanwhile, pain survives time and the grave. One need only ask an addict, who is quite aware of the intense pain of longing, what it feels like never to be satisfied.

* * *

When we are conceived, our earliest relationship is the environment in mother's womb. A pre-natal connection is there between mother and child. We turn from side to side and swim in the Edenic water. We hear through the bones in our skull her voice and the beat of her heart. Our relationship is physiological. Comfort, warmth and food create wellbeing, and all that is asked of us is to grow. Our wisdom is cellular. The great abortion debate centers on this wisdom, or more specifically, on the soul and our definition of when soul enters the body. Some say the soul is the body, that they are one and the same; others believe that until the embryo is able to survive on its own it is not a human soul. The Eastern belief is that until the first breath has been taken in this atmosphere there is no soul; for soul is the breath. There is so much controversy. Some believe that each child chooses its own parents before conception. That belief is based on the choice of tasks or experiences we need to deal with in this lifetime. Perhaps it is true, then, that we choose our mothers. Perhaps it is also true that we repeat our birth many times in order to learn to detach ourselves from mother.

* * *

Several years ago my mother admitted to me that she had always been envious of her children, all of them, without exception. She hopes to change her attitude but envious feelings still afflict her.

Envy is fundamental to psychoanalytic therapy. To overcome envy is to acquire a mastery over the trauma of birth. Child psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein furthers our understanding of this grievous evil so prevalent in the world today. It is the root of much violence. In her book Envy Klein refers to the Old Testament and its exposure of this universal problem. Also, envy is one of the seven deadly sins listed in the Catholic catechism as a flaw of human nature. Klein's description of envy, however, exposes its opposite, which is great love and generosity. Her enlargement of the problem shows us the lessons that can be learned from envy and its dark projections. Light added to envy creates love and understanding. Giving is a counteraction to envy's negative and soul-destroying behavior. Giving reverses the urge to be needy, often referred to as greedy. Envy, transformed to giving, becomes a spiritual practice and is not confined to the world of material possessions. When magnified envy includes covetous thoughts. It involves our behavior toward the success, sympathetic joy, happiness and goodness of another's actions. Birth is mother's first act of giving.

No wonder birth is traumatic; it is the expulsion from Eden. Now begins the real journey. The trauma of birth becomes synonymous with a chance to become conscious and to leave behind the suffering to which we are all subjected. Envy, for instance, must be left behind as we are expelled from Eden. The journey of the hero or heroine starts with mother acceptance. Every individual seeks a strong armor and eventually a redeeming love, as a reward for courage and heroic deeds.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from STONE CHILD'S MOTHERby VIRGINIA NEMETZ Copyright © 2012 by Virginia Nemetz. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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